There are many surviving ancient and sacred spaces around the world. Some are protected and used for spiritual practice; some have become popular tourist destinations; and some are left to the whims of a changing culture. These sacred spaces range from human constructions to natural lands built only by the elements. From the ancient Greek temples in Agrigento, Italy to the ruins in Arizona’s Wuptaki National Monument, these spaces resonate with many contemporary people in their work to honor, reconstruct, practice and celebrate time-honored religious traditions, the associated cultures and surrounding ecology.
Unfortunately, many of these unprotected spaces, whether purely natural or human-engineered, are open to threats posed by modern construction in the name of so-called “progress” and industrialization. One such place that has recently drawn international attention is the mountain of Mauna Kea on the “Big Island” in Hawai’i.
!["Mauna Kea from the ocean"[Credit: Vadim Kurland, Lic. CC Wikimedia]](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/640px-Mauna_Kea_from_the_ocean-500x375.jpg)
“Mauna Kea from the ocean”[Credit: Vadim Kurland, Lic. CC Wikimedia]
Today, Mauna Kea has 13 observatories on its summit funded by over 11 countries. It wasn’t until the 1960s that scientists discovered Mauna Kea’s optimal conditions for telescope viewing. When it was finally possible to reach the mountain, the University of Hawai’i (UH) was granted a 65-year lease to develop the land for research. By the late 1970s, other organizations began to request authorization to sub-lease that property. Those agreements are what has led to the large number of telescopes on the mountain today.
Protests began almost immediately after the first UH telescope was completed. Locals were concerned not only about the destruction of a sacred religious space but also about disturbances to the indigenous wildlife, some of which is native only to that area. In the 1980s, the state published a development plan and environmental impact report. In 2000, the plan was updated “to include community involvement” and the Office of Mauna Kea Management was established.
However, it was only a few short years later that a new $1.4 billion Thirty-Meter Telescope was proposed for the summit of Mauna Kea. This colossal telescope, called TMT, would be the largest and most advanced in the world with an optical ability 10x greater than any working telescope. According to an AP report, “The telescope should help scientists see some 13 billion light years away for a glimpse into the early years of the universe.” Headed by Caltech and the University of California, the project is being funded jointly by interests from the United States, Japan, Canada, India and China.
![Proposed Thirty-Meter Telescope [Courtesy TMT Observatory Corporation via Wikimedia]](https://wildhunt.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Top_view_of_tmt_complex-500x281.jpg)
Proposed Thirty-Meter Telescope [Courtesy TMT Observatory Corporation via Wikimedia]
Opponents filed an appeal in May 2013 in yet another attempt to stop the project. The appeal reads:
Mauna Kea advocates are seeking justice in Hawai‘i courts … It is unfortunate when public citizens are forced to go through court proceedings when developments such as the TMT Project are systematically granted permits by the BLNR despite these projects not meeting the criteria as outlined in Hawai`i State law … We must proceed ahead and be idle no more. Mauna a Wakea is still sacred.
One of the laws that is being broken is a building height code. The proposed TMT would become the tallest building on the island. Along with environmental concerns and a destruction of sacred space, opponents also point to a direct violation of state codes.
The first appeal was eventually denied when the courts upheld the Board’s decision to allow the sublease. According to reports, four individual opponents, Kealoha Pisciotta, Clarence Ching, Paul Neves and E. Kalani Flores, were not giving up and have since decided to take the issue back to court in four separate cases representing only themselves. Despite the threat of future court action, the TMT Observatory Corporation felt comfortable moving forward and set the groundbreaking ceremony for Oct. 7.
What the TMT Observatory Corporation didn’t expect is what happened on that day. Protestors blocked the road leading up to ground-breaking ceremony site. They spoke out, chanted and held signs that read things like “Your Mother is Not a Commodity” or “Too Many Telescopes.” The vans carrying attendees were forced to slow down or stop entirely. Much of this was captured on video:
Later the same group of protestors interrupted the ceremony itself. Led by Pua Case and Joshua Lanakila Mangauil, they stood before the crowd of attendees and addressed investors. In a desperate emotional appeal, one woman says to a group of Japanese men, “You let Mount Fuji stand; Mount Fuji is sacred. Our Mauna Kea is just as sacred as Mount Fuji. Please hear us. Hear us … She protects us.” This was also caught on video:
The protests were echoed in Palo Alto, California where a group of people stood outside of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation offices. The Foundation is one of the American investors backing the TMT project. The California protest was led by Kauʻi Peralto, a Hawaiian cultural educator at Stanford University, and was also supported by the Santa Cruz Indigenous Solidarity, the Wintun tribe of Northern California and many other concerned individuals.
In a blog post, Kealoha Pisciotta a native Hawai’in, local activist and president of Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, described best the meaning of the mountain and why all of these people have come together to stop a project that would otherwise seem beneficial to human understanding and scientific discovery. Pisciotta describes Mauna Kea as the “temple of the creators,” which is home to the deities that gave birth to the Hawaiian people. It is the meeting of Earth Mother and Earth Father. She writes, ” Mauna Kea in every respect represents the zenith of the Native Hawaiian people’s ancestral ties to Creation itself.”
The mountain is featured in many Polynesian myths and religious stories. It is considered a place of calm and a place of peace. She writes:
When we look to Mauna Kea, we look from Mauna Kea and we look within ourselves to find our responsibility to Mauna Kea and hence our place in the world. We move through time and space back to our beginning, to the time when the Pō (darkness of creation) gave birth to the Ao (light of creation) … We feel honored that we are allowed to be there, humbled by the majesty and greatness of Mauna Kea.
Another activist, one of the protest leaders, and a Hawaiian cultural educator, Pua Case regularly incorporates the mountain into her own personal spiritual practice. She told a San Francisco reporter:
Almost no matter where I look, there’s something foreign there. I can never just pray as you would in a forest where there are just trees — where no matter where you faced, it would be just you and your forest, you and your gods, you and your spirit. I’m afraid if there’s one more thing, I can never really look at my mountain and pray without having to say, ‘I’m sorry.’
Case was unfortunately unavailable for interview but did briefly say that the spiritual practices of her native people are very complex and connect deeply to this mountain.
Last week’s protests did successfully halt the TMT groundbreaking. However, the project is still moving forward, if only delayed. Case, Pisciotta and many others pledge to continue the battle to save their mountain, their sacred space, their protector and, in doing so, preserve a specialized local ecology and a piece of native Hawaiian culture.
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“When we look to Mauna Kea, we look from Mauna Kea and we look within ourselves to find our responsibility to Mauna Kea and hence our place in the world. We move through time and space back to our beginning, to the time when the Pō (darkness of creation) gave birth to the Ao (light of creation) … We feel honored that we are allowed to be there, humbled by the majesty and greatness of Mauna Kea.”
Almost ironically that is what the telescopes are doing…looking into the past to see the birth of the cosmos and discover the origins of all origins and thus our place in it.
This situation isnʻt just about ʻnativeʻ or ʻancientʻ beliefs (which I resent how our traditional and cultural beliefs are being put across in this article) this is a firm example of renting and selling stolen lands. The US government illegally attacked, confiscated, and is still occupying our country. What you see here is just one more example of kingdom lands being used to profit our occupiers.
The need or “coincidence” that each major example of this ill-begotten profiteering off sacred crown lands is further proof of occupation–the US military even admits to choosing sacred places purposefully so as to further drive home their superiority over our citizens. While the above video may come off as not the most polished of protests it illustrates the elevated frustration that our citizens feel.
There is also a further frustration at the racist policies shoving us to be the newest ʻindian tribe of americaʻ with the Department of Interior “hearings” that abandons our Kanaka Maoli, Citizens, that arenʻt Hawaiian by blood. And I must admit my anger at being constantly labeled in the Pagan community as some sort of special Other category–being called ʻnativeʻ or ʻancientʻ whilst simultaneously demanding that we be available to the questions and obligations of those not part of our Family. I will not deny this article was well written and well meant most likely. However, I am beyond floored at the lack of courtesy by the writer in her manner of contacting me for this story as well as the persistent need in the Pagan community to think itʻs ok to run to an unknown person unannounced and just expect them to respond to your borderline demand to pump you for information or perspective. Itʻs one of the many reasons I keep to the Polytheist community and have long since disassociated with the Pagan “community”.
So..you got pissed because the article’s author wanted to contact you?
I mean, I understand that lots of “White” (or “European”, or “Westerners” for lack of a better term) Pagans tend to encroach maybe a bit too much on “Native” (a.k.a. “Non European”, for lack of a better term) traditions and that it sometimes (Often ?) ends up looking like cultural appropriation (which in its own way is a form of “soft” colonialism) but seriously?
I mean, it’s your right to want to dissociate yourself from the above-mentioned Pagan Community (btw why “Pagan ” ?) which, deep down, has little to do with your traditional beliefs (despite what many Pagans would say) but here you’re facing a community which, at large, is supportive to your plight (while indeed not suffering directly form it) and you get offended by what, an email? In such situations, I would rather think that receiving support from another community would be a good thing. I agree that many Pagans fail to see the larger, colonialist picture and that, while they tend to be moved each time a sacred space is being threatened, they don’t give a flying fuck about the people in general, but as you said yourself, people here are good-spirited, if at times slightly gullible.
Don’t you think that, instead of rambling against these people’s misunderstanding of your culture, it would be more productive to try to educate them slightly in the matter? That’s what you seemed to be going to in the beginning of your post, but I was sorely disappointed that it ended up like it did. Feels like a missed opportunity here.
That was my bad, Lamyka. I told Heather you’d be a good person to contact and then didn’t give you the heads up. And I thought you’d be a good contact for exactly the perspective you shared.
As a self-identified member of the Pagan community — I understand your use of scare quotes very well — it is my hope that you will continue to offer your criticisms of us. Some of us, maybe not enough of us, are listening.
Something slightly similar happened at home in Norway a couple years ago: The municipality wanted to enter the competition to get the Winter Olympics and they had the idea of building a huge sky jump on the local landmark mountain, which happened to be a Sacred Space in the Old Sámi Religion. Sámi activists, together with environmentalists thankfully nuked the project but the Sámi got quite a lot of bad press from it later on (They also are a rather tiny minority where I live).
Thank you, Heather and Lamyka, for helping me see more of the situation than I might get elsewhere.